The present invention generally relates to apparatus and methods for performing multiple slaughtered animal processing operations via a single, automated machine. The present invention further relates to one of such processing operations, which comprises cutting out the vent, and removing unwanted fecal and other material.
Commercial processing of a slaughtered animal such as poultry involves a number of steps often starting from stunning and killing the animal and ending with, inter alia, cutting the cleaned carcass into parts suitable for cooking and further processing, or with preserving the whole carcass for cooking. The processing steps in commercial processing operations in many countries are subject to governmental regulation and on-site inspection for health and sanitary purposes.
These processing steps are typically completed by different automated machines located adjacent a conveyor that moves the animals or parts thereof among various machines stationed throughout the plant. Space within processing plants is highly valuable. The automated machinery thus typically comprises a rotating and circular processor that holds multiple stations. Each station performs a single type of operation on a single animal or part thereof that the conveyor carries alongside the outer circumference of the rotating processor. Different processors perform different tasks (e.g., removing the vent, opening, eviscerating, etc.). By making the processors rotary to match the conveyor speed and generally circular, such operations can be completed in less plant space. That is, using a portion (generally around 180xc2x0) of the processor""s circumference takes up less linear meters (and thus less plant space) than doing the same operations in a linear fashion.
In present processing lines, different processors, such as a venting processor and an opening processor are separated from each other. Animals or parts thereof are moved between two rotary processors by a conveyor, in general, an overhead conveyor that typically first carries the animal or part thereof to a first processor, then to a second processor and then on to further processing. While this traditional layout of separate processors provides a relatively easy configuration to manage, it takes up substantial valuable plant space.
In International Patent Application No. 96/16553 a processing line is disclosed in which a meandering conveyor line passes along a plurality of stand-along processors. A portion of 180 degrees of each processor""s circumference is used for performing the respective operations therein. This layout necessitates additional structures to handle the forces generated on the conveyor line and the processors.
The traditional layout of separate processors also inordinately consumes other natural resources. During processing, the process line and the animals or parts thereof are given xe2x80x9cCIPxe2x80x9d treatment, which refers to Clean In Place systems that spray a cleaning fluid upon the animals or parts thereof and the operating elements of each rotary processor in the processing line in order to remove contamination and animal particles. Each processor must be covered to prevent fluid from escaping into the general plant. Washing each animal or part thereof and each processor thoroughly requires a significant amount of water or cleaning fluid, which not only increases the cost of processing, but raises environmental concerns about water usage and treatment of waste water as well.
Moreover, separating of the processors requires more material to construct at least because it takes additional structure to couple the machines via a conveyor.
The traditional separation of processors also invites unwanted tampering or interference from plant employees. Indeed, because conventional processors sometimes miss a required operation, plants have typically assigned a back up employee between processors to monitor and correct results of at least a number of processors. Such a plant employee may damage or modify the conveyor line that carries the animals or parts thereof from a stand-alone first processor to a stand-alone second processor, even if inadvertently, when attempting to perform or adjust the operation the processor was supposed to perform, but did not do correctly. Moreover, an employee attempting to fix the problem may actually make it worse, e.g., if the employee removes a piece of vent from a carcass and the remainder falls back into the carcass, which can lead to fecal contamination of the carcass before it reaches an opening processor.
In short, there remains a need for effective mechanisms and methods that will perform processing operations on slaughtered animals with reduced cost, less resources, especially plant space and water, less human intervention, and increased operational capacity and efficiency.
USDA standards have long urged the meat processing industry to remove or eliminate fecal contamination from slaughtered animals, such as poultry, hogs, or the like. U.S. Pat. No 4,899,421 describes a method and device for removing fecal material by inserting a hollow probe into the vent before venting and eviscerating the slaughtered animal. The probe has slots near its open end and ports located on the upper side of the probe. Vacuum sucks the fecal material through the slots and ports into the probe and out of the slaughtered animal. The slot prevent the rectal cavity or gut from collapsing around the probe upon activation of the vacuum. Intermittent vacuum also helps prevent collapsing of the gut. A water wash cleans the probe and may also be used to help loosen the fecal material.
The known apparatus for removing fecal material is entirely separate from other equipment that processes slaughtered animals. Such separate apparatus is expensive and not favored by poultry and other slaughtered animal processors, who understandably desire to minimize capital expenditure on processing equipment. Other problems existed with the known device in practice. For example, the vacuum caused the gut to be sucked into the ports, thereby clogging it. The ports used with the known device also were insufficient to remove sufficient fecal and other unwanted material. The expectation was that fecal material would ooze around the probe and into the ports. In practice, dense fecal material or undigested feed or the like often prevented the pin from penetrating sufficiently and certainly did not ooze into the ports for removal. Moreover, the dense material tends to be displaced by the insertion of vent removal means, in particular a centering pin or the like thereof, which may often rupture the gut of the carcass. Ruptured guts allow the fecal and other material to escape to other internal organs and contaminant the internal portion of the carcass.
Present processing lines generally lack cost and production efficient equipment for ensuring removal of fecal material, however, and instead simply remove the vent of the carcass. This is typically done by a rotary processor with multiple stations, each of which is configured to remove the vent from a carcass brought temporarily into registration with that station. This processor is often called a venting processor by persons skilled in this art.
Some machines, such as one marketed by Simon-Johnson, exist that use vacuum to help hold the vent for cutting. U.K. Patent No. 2147190 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,303 apparently disclose such machines. The Simon-Johnson machine provides vacuum via port holes located on the side of a pin that inserts into the vent of a slaughtered poultry carcass to so hold the vent. As a byproduct of using vacuum, this removes some fecal material, but almost immediately the suction pulls the sides of the gut into the ports, thereby performing the primary goal of the device, which is to better hold the vent for cutting. But once the ports are closed off and holding the vent, fecal material cannot enter the ports. Further, a lack of penetration into the vent by the pinxe2x80x94which moves into the gut only perhaps 2.5 cm or so in larger poultry carcassesxe2x80x94prevents adequate removal of fecal material.
Other devices also exist that attempt to minimize fecal contamination. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,580,304 discloses a shroud that surrounds a vent cutting blade during its cutting operation, thereby preventing fecal material or the like from splattering upon the carcass during cutting. Further, the processing industry has long used water washing devices continuously to wash carcasses as they travel through the processing line. These and other devices, however, merely address the symptoms of fecal contamination by partially removing only the visible contamination instead of actually eliminating the source.
Public scrutiny of meat processing procedures is increasing. For instance, new USDA regulations mandate zero tolerance of fecal material once poultry or the like reach the chilling device located at the end of the processing line. Failure to comply may result in removal of the carcass from the processing line for disposal. However, use of prior devices like those described above or the more common water washers used throughout the processing lines will not alone remove all the fecal material.
Accordingly, there remains a need for effective mechanisms and methods that will fully remove fecal and other unwanted material from slaughtered animals during processing.
In a traditional venting processor, the carcass to be vented is externally fixed by positioning means relative to the path of the venting mechanism during the operation of the latter. Each element of the venting mechanism follows a predetermined path relative to the positioning means, and thus relative to the carcass. Different carcasses may, however, have different sizes and different positions of the vent, resulting in an unacceptably high percentage of defective venting operations in the prior art venting processors.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a venting processor which will reliably perform venting operations on carcasses of different shapes and sizes having different vent positions.
The present invention provides a single poultry processing apparatus that performs multiple processes upon slaughtered animals, in particular but not exclusively poultry. The apparatus integrates at least two rotary processor within one frame, one rotary processor for performing a first operation, and the other for performing a second operation. The first processor and the second processor are positioned adjacent one another and are connected by a conveyor following preferably a generally S-shaped route. The apparatus forms the first, second and possibly further processors into a compact single machine (which in the case of two processors in the machine is referred to as a xe2x80x9ctwinxe2x80x9d machine), which takes up less plant space and can be handled easier than two or more stand-alone processors would. A cover or shrouding surrounds the frame and processors, preventing human tampering or interference with the automated processing operations by plant employees, increasing the safety of the plant employees, and shielding the area surrounding the machine from water and other materials sprayed about by the CIP system. Moreover, the compact single machine saves a significant amount of material, including shrouding that would otherwise be required to eliminate water spraying past the animals or parts thereof and separate machine elements onto the plant floor. Much less water is needed for CIP processes.
This invention performs multiple, automated processing operations upon an animal or part thereof in a single machine which may comprise a first processor that can remove fecal and unwanted material and cut out the vent of the carcass.
A conveyor line which may be configured in a generally S-shaped route moves animals or parts thereof from the first, venting processor to a second, opening processor. If a carcass enters the twin machine with its tail or back toward the first processor, the s-shaped route ensures that the carcass enters the second processor with its breast toward the second processor and vice versa. If the first processor is configured to both remove unwanted material from the carcass (e.g., through a vacuuming operation) and cut out the vent of the carcass, the carcass should approach the first rotary processor tail or back first because the vent is the optimum registration point upon which to vacuum out the fecal and other material and then cut out the vent. After the vacuuming and venting operations are carried out by the first processor, the conveyor line carries the carcass to the second processor, which can open the carcass. The second processor makes in incision which extends from an opening around the vent to the tip of the breast. The abdominal opening allows the viscera of the slaughtered animal to be removed from the carcass. The second processor receives the carcasses in a xe2x80x9cbreast inxe2x80x9d position with their breasts, rather than their tails or backs, facing the processor. This is desired because the optimum registration point for performing the opening operations is the breast tip. Because the S-shaped conveyor route presents the carcass to the venting processor and the opening processor both with the proper optimum registration point, this embodiment of the present invention has an improved efficiency of processing operations over conventionally separate processors.
Because of the combination of at least two processors into one machine, the present invention increases the degree of conveyor wrap, which refers to the percentage or degree of registration of the conveyor with a processor""s outer circumference, without increasing the complexity or materials requirements of plant layouts. The wrap for processors in the machine according to the invention may be greater than the 180xc2x0 that is typical for stand-alone processors. The wrap adjusts to a higher or lower degree. For instance, changing the relative positions of two processors changes the degree of wrap for both processors. This flexibility is important because an operation performed by a first processor may have a different working pace from an operation performed by a second processor in the frame of the machine. In order for two or more processors to work in harmony, sometimes it is necessary for them to have different numbers of working stations. The invention allows for an increased number of stations for each processor as a result of an increased wrap. In one embodiment of the present invention, the reconfiguration of the amount of wrap is made easier with the first processor and the second processor and/or the frame having means for adjusting the relative locations of the processors in the frame.
Additionally, the machine of the present invention with two or more processors in one frame provides more time for carrying out additional processing operations, such a the fecal removal or skin separation operations capable of being carried out by the preferred embodiments of the vent and opening processors. Further, consolidating operations into a single machine will result in significant capital savings for the poultry processing plants.
A preferred embodiment of the invention uses as a venting processor the vacuuming vent cutter described in U.S. Provisional patent application No. 60/075,372. In this embodiment, the venting processor completely cuts out and removes the vent of a poultry carcass while simultaneously removing unwanted material from the exterior and the interior of the carcass. The venting processor has a hollow centering pin nesting within a coaxial holding element that is also coaxial with a generally cylindrical, rotary cutter. The pin penetrates into the vent of the carcass. A portion of the pin extends past a knob-shaped probe and terminates in a opening that communicates with a vacuum source. Upon application of vacuum, the opening evacuates unwanted material, such as fecal material, from the exterior of the carcass, and fecal material, undigested feed or the like from the interior of the carcass. In the process, the holding element advances to contact the skin surrounding the vent. The coaxial cutter is then advance to slice through the skin surrounding the vent to cut out the vent.
The effectiveness and efficiency of the venting vacuuming operations performed in this embodiment eliminates the need to have backup plant personnel inspect the venting results before those vented carcasses reach an opening processor, allowing incorporation into one machine of both the venting and opening processors.
The preferred embodiment may use as an opening processor the device that is disclosed in PCT application no. PCT/NL97/00540.
During the vent cutting and vacuuming operations, the carcass may be fixed in place by a positioning device that is capable of accepting a wide variety of animal carcasses coming in multiple sizes and shapes. The positioning device may have a pair of arms that are moved from a first, open position for receiving the animal carcass to a second, closed position for clamping and holding the animal carcass. The arms are moved together via a lever and cam arrangement that pivots one end of the arms to bring various bends in the arms closer together in order to more effectively hold the carcass between the two arms. A movable back support adjusts to the open or closed position of the arms depending on the size of the carcass. The back support may also be moved during other processing to reposition the carcass in the optimum location during the various steps required for a particular operation, such as venting. These features increase processing efficacy and efficiency notwithstanding the different flock sizes that many modern plants process.
According to the above, the present invention aims to achieve at least one or more of the following objectives:
to provide a new apparatus and method for processing slaughtered animals or parts thereof in a single machine which has at least a first processor and a second processor;
to provide a machine that has a single frame for holding at least two processors coupled by a conveyor line following a generally S-shaped route;
to provide a machine with at least two processors that occupies less plant space than stand-alone processors, which uses less material for the shrouding around the machine and requires a shorter conveyor line for coupling the processors;
to provide a machine for performing processing operations in a manner that reduces the likelihood of human tampering or interference with the animals or parts thereof during processing;
to provide a new apparatus and method for processing animals or parts thereof in a machine which has a conveyor line connecting a first processor to a second processor, wherein the degree of wrap can be varied to increase operating efficiency;
to provide a new apparatus and method for processing carcasses in a machine that has a first processor for vacuuming out and venting a carcass.